30 



THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT : 



While the oil of the chocolate-seed is perfectly wholesome, 

 there are some persons who find in the percentage natural to 

 the seeds a too large amount for easy digestion. The removal 



of a part of this, which 

 might with propriety be 

 called an excess of the oil, 

 was practised even in very 

 early days, as is seen in the 

 cut herewith given, taken 

 from an old work on the sub- 

 ject. The present method 

 of extracting the oil is not 

 essentially different, save in 

 a few particulars, from that 

 here figured, and therefore 

 need not be described in 

 detail. 



The method of manufac- 

 ture is substantially as fol- 

 lows : the ground frag- 

 ments of roasted seeds are 

 subjected to pressure, and 

 with the result of withdraw- 

 ing just as much oil as the manufacturers desire to abstract. The 

 pressed mass is, in the most successful process, treated mechanically 

 in such a manner as to divide and subdivide the minute particles 

 until they are capable of passing through a sieve having several 

 thousand meshes to the square inch. But such pulverization as this 

 would, under ordinary circumstances, reduce the mass to a dull and 

 unattractive powder. In the process devised by the firm of Walter 



